Years ago, short of money, I owned a car that, in retrospect, I should never have bought.  Almost everything imaginable was wrong with it.  It leaked oil, used too much fuel, was oftentimes difficult to start, and when it did, it stalled out frequently.  I could go on, but you get the point.  The car had only one redeeming quality:  it got me to where I needed to go.  When it no longer did, I got rid of it, only to get another clunker in its place.  

Today, I cannot help but compare my beloved nation, the United States of America, to that old car.  The list of defects in our system is long and disappointing and even inspires dread.  Too many of our leaders are corrupt, our elections seem to be rigged, criminals are idolized while veterans are suspected of insurrection, Big Tech controls the town hall, debauchery is taught to schoolchildren — oh, please, stop me.  Worse yet, there is no tow truck.  

Up until recently, despite its many and serious flaws, our nation had at least one redeeming quality:  it got us where we needed to go.  It protected us from foreign enemies.  It controlled crime.  It (symbolically and literally) filled the potholes.  We had, at least to some extent, a republic, and we could feel that we were on the right track to a better future.  

Things have changed.  We are at the point where crime is increasingly uncontrolled, in many cases deliberately.  Our foreign enemies are a greater threat to us than at any time since Pearl Harbor was bombed.  Our internal enemies are able to steal national elections.   

The struggle for freedom is no longer merely academic; it is existential.  The government is no longer keeping us free:  even the pandemic emergency is an opportunity for power-grabbing that the left is not letting be wasted.  The very reason for the nation-state's existence is being systematically warped; indeed, the power of government is being used against us, not to uphold the Constitution, but to subvert it — not to protect our rights, but to violate them.  

The clunker is no longer getting us where we need to go.  

Time is short, and unless there is a dramatic turnaround, and unless it happens soon, our descendants will live in a "dark age" comparable to the worst chapters in world history.  We have a duty to prevent that.  As President Trump asked, what have we got to lose?

Image via Max Pixel.

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